The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has been barred from conducting the supplementary governorship election scheduled for March 23 in Adamawa State.

The Adamawa State High Court, presided by Justice Abdulaziz Waziri, granted an interim injunction barring INEC from conducting the re-scheduled polls in the 44 polling units where voting either did not hold or was cancelled during the March 9, 2019 gubernatorial vote.

The ruling was an answer to a prayer by the governorship candidate of the Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy, MRRD., Rev Eric Theman, who questioned non-inclusion of his party logo on the ballot by INEC.

The Adamawa governorship election had been declared inconclusive by INEC, on Monday, after results collated from the 21 LGAs of the state showed the margin of lead between the two leading parties to be lower than the number of registered voters in the polling units where voting was cancelled.

The commission had announced on Tuesday that it would conduct a supplementary election on March 23 in the affected polling units. But a sign that the current suit might come up emerged the day after the election, March 10, when the MRDD candidate cried out that his party logo was not on the ballot paper, and urged INEC to cancel the election.

“I reject the election and urge INEC to stop the process of announcing the results immediately. My party is not on the ballot paper and I will reject whatever is the outcome,” Theman had said.